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"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking

I think what sutec has put forth here is worth framing. Yes I am new at this, but i did weeks of research and followed the best available advice (which sutec here lays out is plain english). With one PF syrince I mixed, pressure sterilized 10 1/2 pt. jars of straight PF TEK and all 10 are now fully colonized (about 14-15 days) and I am waiting for them to pin in-vitro as per instruction. I have followed to the letter and it is working. I will post pics when I get some fruits. Best of luck to all.

if someone wanted to combine the two, it would definitely belong in grow/find

Link

------------------How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will. -Albert Einstein

--------------------Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other. -- H.P. Lovecraft "The Silver Key"

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"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking

Awesome post man. Most of this stuff is simple, but you've got to know it or you'll never succeed. I wish I could have read something like this before I ruined my first two casing projects. This should be required reading when you joi the community.

I agree with everything except for the sterility part. Yes, sterility is an important factor in growing, but not the most important. When I first started growing I thought sterility was everything and I went all-out during the whole process (i.e. taking a shower and scrubbing half of the kitchen spotless clean before innoculating). Shortly after, I found it was a big waste of time. Now all I do is clean off the counter that I'm working on and wash my hands before innoculation. From there on I just use simple common sense, and I hardly ever have any contamination problems.

The point: don't waste hours on sterility when the same can be accomplished with less work.

i agree with shroomlord. getting anal with sterility can turn the hobby from fun to drudgery. just to get that last 1-2% contam,not worth it.oh yeah, the original poster left out the 'neglect' tek.i mean, if it ain't broke, don't fuck with it. you can kill them with kindness.

shroom|ord - Sterility is a key part, if you're breathing on your jars, leaving them open to air and allowing contams to enter the process you're doomed for failure. I'm not saying be Clean Room clean, but being mindful of how clean your process is can only help your success rates...

1. To induce fruiting a dropping of ten (10) degrees (f) is recommended. The temperature should be dropped for at least 6 hours, preferably 12 or more though. This temperature change signals the mycelium that it's time to fruit. This is known as "Cold Shocking".

2. Increase the relative humidity of your growing chamber to around 90%, this does a couple of things, including giving the developing pinheads ample water with which to build a good mushroom body. The increase in humidity is also a signal to the mycelium that it is time to fruit.

3. You should have light coming from the top of the casing for at least a couple of hours a day (In my experience), Stamets et al, recommend a 12/12 on/off cycle. I've found that a couple of hours is sufficient though.

4. A decrease in CO2 levels generally signals that the mycelium has "broken" through the substrate and when combined with increased humidity, light and a temperature drop (mycelium growing out of cow shit will be subject to more air, light and less CO2 than in the cozy confines of dung), signal the mycelium it is time to produce some fruit. Fanning your casing is recommended at least once a day, twice or more I would say is better though.

Right, sterility is a key part, and by simply using common sense you can keep it from becomming a problem.

It's doubtful that breathing on your jars will contaminate them with the vermiculite layer protecting them (esp. with only 4 small points of entry). If you're worried anyway, simply don't breathe on them! Problem solved.

I would like to say one thing about the points that were brought up in this topic.1. Sterility IS THE MOST KEY POINT. However having said this I need to clarify, this doesn't mean that you have to sterilize your environment by compulisvly cleaning it. Sterility in your environment is a fine balance between ambiant spore loads and the effort that you spend on cleaning. Also some of you talk of being a slave to procedure, I believe that in order to get consistant results that you have to become a slave to procedure, not neccisarily spending unrealisticly long amounts of time with cleaning but getting into a strict regiment and sticking to it "like a slave" is the way to go.

Yeah. I mean take your hand, soak it in vinegar, then soak it in hyrdogen peroxide, then soak it in bleach, then soak it in alchohol (light it up if you want to freak everyone out)... then take a fresh petri dish and thumbrint the agar and see what grows.. You can't kill everything but I think the whole point is just trying to give the mushroom mycelium a head start on running the substrate.